The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Nonfiction

Advice and Essential Exercises from Respected Writers, Editors, and Teachers

The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Nonfiction

Advice and Essential Exercises from Respected Writers, Editors, and Teachers

FEATURING ESSAYS FROM: Barrie Jean Borich  Jenny Boully  Norma Elia Cantú  Rigoberto González  Philip Graham  Carol Guess  Jeff Gundy • Robin Hemley  Barbara Hurd  Judith Kitchen Eric LeMay  Dinah Lenney  Bret Lott  Patrick Madden Lee Martin  Maggie McKnight  Brenda Miller Kyle Minor  Aimee Nezhukumatathil  Anne Panning  Lia Purpura  Peggy Shumaker  Sue William Silverman  Jennifer Sinor  Ira Sukrungruang • Nicole Walker

Unmatched in its focus on a concise and popular emerging genre, The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Nonfiction features 26 eminent writers, editors, and teachers offering expert analysis, focused exercises, and helpful examples of what make the brief essay form such a perfect medium for experimentation, insight, and illumination. With a comprehensive introduction to the genre and book by editor Dinty W. Moore, this guide is perfect for both the classroom and the individual writer’s desk—an essential handbook for anyone interested in the scintillating and succinct flash nonfiction form. How many words does it take to tell a compelling true story? The answer might surprise you.

«The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Nonfiction, edited by the invaluable Dinty W. Moore, is a lot more than flashy. These thoughtful, thought-provoking essays and exercises have the paradoxical effect of slowing down our attention and encouraging an expansion of the moment, while seeming to be saving writing and reading time. A very useful compilation.»

Phillip Lopate, author of Art of the Personal Essay

«Flash-in-the-pan? Hardly. The flash nonfiction genre has staying power, and The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Nonfiction will show you why. Opening with a thorough and informative history of the genre, renowned writer, editor, and teacher Dinty W. Moore assembles a cast of writers who share their expertise, suggest writing exercises, and provide exemplary mod­els of the best flash nonfiction being written today. This book is required reading for any writer, editor, or teacher of the brief nonfiction form.»

Rebecca McClanahan, author of The Riddle Song and Other Rememberings and Word Painting


Dinty W. Moore is the author of the memoir Between Panic & Desire, winner of the Grub Street Nonfiction Book Prize in 2009. His other books include The Accidental Buddhist, Toothpick Men, The Emperor’s Virtual Clothes, and the writing guides, The Mindful Writer: Noble Truths of the Writing Life and Crafting the Personal Essay: A Guide for Writing and Publishing Creative Nonfiction. Moore has published essays and stories in The Southern Review, The Georgia Review, Harpers, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Gettysburg Review, Utne Reader, and Crazyhorse, among numerous other ven­ues. A professor of nonfiction writing at Ohio University, Moore has won many awards for his writing, including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Fiction. He edits Brevity, an online journal of flash nonfiction, and serves on the editorial boards of Creative Nonfiction and New Ohio Review. He regularly teaches workshops across the country and in Europe and currently lives in Athens, Ohio, where he grows heirloom tomatoes and edible dandelions. His website is http://dintywmoore.com/